Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the smell of cows
Paul and I packed up the truck and left California for Michigan on Wednesday, May 26. We were towing a U-Haul trailer, and had Annie and Bear (our 2 dogs) in the back of the truck. We purchaseda camper shell just especially for them and this trip. That's love I tell you. They didn't seem to particularly care for the ride, but there was not one instance of vomiting the entire trip, for which I am indescribably grateful.
Of course it was hotter than hades through California, Arizona and New Mexico. We have no air conditioning, but even if we did it would not have been wise to use it. Our truck is light, and not really meant for towing lots of stuff.
We stayed in Gallup, New Mexico the first night and the dogs had their first taste of hotel living - which is to say they were constantly shushed, but they were allowed up on the bed.
The next day was the rest of New Mexico and Colorado. We were planning to stay with my sister and her husband, and arrived at their house around 7:45 pm. We didn't have any momentum trying to go up their driveway, and didn't quite make it. After several fruitless attempts to back down the driveway (not an easy task with a trailer), my brother-in-law Troy was kind enough to take over for our travel-addled brains and managed to back out and try again successfully to reach the top of the driveway. For those of you who are wondering, driveways in teh mountain communities of Colorado can be steep, long and treacherous. Jen and Troy's driveway falls somewhere in the middle between "and infant could park here" and "get your papers in order before attempting to drive this". The driveway really wasn't that bad, but with all of our extra weight and the fact that we had no momentum it was just the thing to top off a very long day.
Jennifer and troy's house is quite amazing. Check out some pictures here: http://hometown.aol.com/hagers/index.html
On day three we drove through the rest of Colorado, Nebraska and into Iowa. In other words, the landscape was just as flat and boring as it could possibly be. As I'm writing this, I'm thinking, "you know I've had some training as a writer, couldn't I be doing a better job here?" But no. Nebraska just doesn't conjure up poetry for me.
We had started listening to Stephen King's "Salem's Lot" on day two, and continued to listen all day on day three. I'm not a huge fan of horror, but the book was at least an interesting distraction from the Nebraska landscape. Nebraska will now be forever associated with Vampires in my mind, and whenever I think of Vampires (as I often do) it will bring back the smell of cow dung. The ENTIRE state smelled like cow dung. Vampire Cows? Hmm...Oh Mr. King, I think I hear your next book calling...
Iowa was pretty. I think hobbits would like it.
The next day it was Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and finally Michigan (not necessarily in that order. They all bled together by the 4th day on the road. In fact, I may have missed a state in there somewhere, but if I did I'm guessing it wasn't worth mentioning). Oddly enough it seemed that the closer we got to home the more we had to stop to get gas, go to the bathroom, buy food, let the dogs out, etc.
We got home around 9:00 pm, didn't bother unpacking anything but the dog food and our overnight clothes, and fell into bed.
We didn't unpack the next day, either. I just couldn't bear the thought of fooling around with boxes, so we went out looking for houses to buy. We have a choice of buying a condo or a house, and the houses seem to have more room. There are 4 bedroom houses with full basements that we could afford just as easily as a condo, but they are so plain. I don't know what my problem is, but they all make me feel sad and depressed. Maybe a condo feels more temporary, so somewhere in my simian backbrain I think I can upgrade, whereas a house feels like a much longer term commitment and therefore I can't buy just any old thing. I'm feeling very torn, but since our house isn't sold yet I should stop worrying.
We do have an offer on the house, a good one. Cross your fingers for us.
Wow, I was hoping this blog would be much more entertaining than this. Oh well. Stay tuned for the job hunt - that's bound to be a laugh riot.